Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Queen of Hearts: Coming of Age in a Hospital Bed
    Unavailable
    Queen of Hearts: Coming of Age in a Hospital Bed
    Unavailable
    Queen of Hearts: Coming of Age in a Hospital Bed
    Ebook188 pages2 hours

    Queen of Hearts: Coming of Age in a Hospital Bed

    By Martha Brooks

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    On the prairies of Canada during World War II, a girl and her two young siblings begin a war of their own. Stricken with tuberculosis, they are admitted to a nearby sanatorium. Teenager Marie Claire is headstrong, angry, and full of stubborn pride. In a new strange land of TB exiles she must "chase the cure," seek privacy where there is none, and witness the slow wasting decline of others. But in this moving novel about fighting a way back to normal life, it is the thing that sets back Marie Claire the most—the demise of her little brother—that also connects her with the person who will be instrumental in helping her recover.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateAug 2, 2011
    ISBN9781429962513
    Unavailable
    Queen of Hearts: Coming of Age in a Hospital Bed
    Author

    Martha Brooks

    My sister and I were raised in southwestern Manitoba, near the U.S. border. Mom was a nurse and Dad a thoracic surgeon. We lived on the lyrically beautiful grounds of a tuberculosis sanatorium in a sprawling many-roomed house with sleeping porches and a wraparound veranda that overlooked Pelican Lake. The surrounding hilly countryside and the feeling that a living spirit moved within this landscape was my earliest artistic influence and I still write from and in that landscape. In fact, our summer home across the lake from where I grew up is the perfect place to grow a novel! The other influence was my own chronic illness as a child, forging my vision and opening me to an early understanding that suffering and miracles often exist side by side. I still write from these influences.   Other personal details include: the surgery when I was eighteen that gave me health and my two voices as an artist; a husband of forty years who is my soul mate and best friend; a grown daughter who is an anthropologist–poet, a three decade career in writing and public speaking, eight books (the first is out of print), four plays, and—at sixty-three years of age—a joyful parallel career as a jazz singer and lyricist where I get to play with some of the best jazz musicians that Canada has to offer.   Martha Brooks resides in Winnipeg, Canada, with her husband, Brian.

    Read more from Martha Brooks

    Related to Queen of Hearts

    Related ebooks

    YA Health & Daily Living For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Speedboat

      Mar 24, 2022

      Nobody died that year. Nobody prospered. There were no births or marriages. Seventeen reverent satires were written – disrupting a cliché and, presumably, creating a genre. That was a dream, of course, but many of the most important things, I fi nd,

      14 min read

    • Article

      Four Of A Kind

      May 3, 2023

      Four Of A Kind
      4 min read

    • Article

      Must-Read Poetry: January 2019

      Jan 8, 2019

      Online we are dead, alive, temporary, and permanent. Mao’s serene descriptions are masterfully unsettling. Each poem bears careful reading. The post Must-Read Poetry: January 2019 appeared first on The Millions.

      5 min read

    • Article

      HUNTING With The Ellements…

      Sep 13, 2021

      HUNTING With The Ellements…
      19 min read

    • Article

      The Plague Legends

      Dec 1, 2021

      The Plague Legends
      12 min read

    • Article

      Paul Theroux: ‘Writing Is A Blood Sport. One Does Have Differences With People’

      Oct 2, 2022

      In an ideal world – by which I mean one that lives up to my most energetic fantasies – Paul Theroux and I would be meeting in some far flung and exotic place: on an empty platform in a distant railway station, or under a date palm in a dried-up deser

      9 min read

    • Article

      Memories Of A Miracle

      Dec 1, 2023

      Memories Of A Miracle
      8 min read

    • Article

      Life In The past Lane

      Aug 27, 2021

      Life In The past Lane
      5 min read

    • Article

      100-WORD-STORY COMPETITION Winners

      Aug 16, 2022

      We’ve been delighted by the huge response to our 100-word-story competition. The entries have flooded in thick and fast during the past few months, but while we’ve enjoyed reading every story, only a few can come out on top! You, our readers, voted t

      5 min read

    • Article

      Table Talk

      Dec 1, 2021

      Table Talk
      7 min read

    • Article

      Longer on Moon

      Sep 22, 2022

      Longer on Moon
      19 min read

    • Article

      Summer Beach Reads

      Jan 10, 2021

      Summer Beach Reads
      7 min read

    • Article

      The Corridor Stories

      Sep 1, 2022

      The Corridor Stories
      5 min read

    • Article

      Excerpts From The Works Of The 2024 Whiting Award Winners

      Apr 10, 2024

      The 2024 Whiting Award winners were announced Wednesday night. Below are excerpts from their work.

      19 min read

    • Article

      Nugrybauti

      Apr 24, 2019

      Nugrybauti
      8 min read

    • Article

      2022 500-Word Essay Contest

      Apr 29, 2023

      2022 500-Word Essay Contest
      4 min read

    • Article

      Table Talk

      Jun 1, 2023

      Table Talk
      11 min read

    • Article

      THE Reading room

      Mar 25, 2020

      THE Reading room
      5 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Queen of Hearts

    3.5/5

    35 ratings4 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Imagine, as a teenager, being confined to a sanatorium, or any confinement for that matter. Marie-Claire, a willful Canadian teenager stricken with tuberculosis, must confront her own mortality as she struggles to maintain her strength - both physical and emotional - inside the confines of her ward. She attempts a friendship with a frail girl, Signy, who despite her wealth is desperately lonely and in need of a friend. And she catches the attention of another patient, Jack, and wonders if it could be love.
    • 4/5
      Great historical fiction/coming of age entry by Martha Brooks. Marie-Claire and her younger brother contract tuberculosis during World War II in Manitoba, Canada. Sent to a sanitarium to heal, they are separated from their family and even each other. In those days, antibiotics had not been discovered which could cure TB, so treatments like sleeping outdoors in the bitter cold and collapsing a lung to rest it were common. Marie-Claire is sick, angry with her father for his emotional distance, and determined not to become friends with long time patient Signy, her roommate. This story is about her journey to health, to friendship, and to first love, all in a hospital bed or not far from it. Marie-Claire’s emotions ring true. She is dealing with very challenging circumstances we readers feel all of her sadness, despair, excitement and hope. This book provides a window into what TB sufferers faced, and a greater understanding of the disease itself – that it is not as quickly contagious as one might think, and that healing from it is not always a fixed and clear path. Sadly, TB is on the rise again as drug resistant strains take hold, which the author explains in her Author’s Note at the beginning of the book. She provides detail about her sources in the Acknowledgements, noting that she lived near one herself as a child.
    • 4/5
      A very sweet book about a period of history that is all but forgotten - when tuberculosis almost always meant a lingering death. Interestingly, while this coming-of-age narrative brings in the expected elements of young love, it also places an emphasis on friendship over the impermanent thrill of romance - something not often seen in YA literature, and especially not in books directed at girls. While many references might be lost on non-Canadians and people who don't live in the American communities near the Northern border, it is still a good read for teen girls, and an excellent book for the summer.
    • 5/5
      Marie-Claire contracts TB in 1940. She and her younger brother and sister, who also contract the disease, are confined to a sanitarium. Through Marie-Claire's story, you find out about the 'cures' that they had for a disease that had no cure.Brooks has put together a great story.